coming to see him. it looked at that point he was going to win here. he was lining up all these important endorsements in south carolina, but i think the debates heard him. he had a poor showing in all the debates, ever how many there were, a lot of them, back in the fall.

>> the unemployment rate under gov. terry's leadership was doubled. while there is almost 2 million more jobs in taxes than when rick perry started, the doubling of unemployment rate means there are also twice as many people who do not have a job. i asked governor carey region -- gov perry about about, and he said texas' ' station about creating jobs was so good people were moving their in droves.

he said 1300 new people moved to texas every day. perhaps we focus on editorials and the influence they have had on the primary. a number of newspapers endorsing mitt romney. your newspaper endorsing jon huntsman, saying he could bring us back together again. what kind of reaction have you been getting on this editorial, and what kind of support is jon huntsman getting across the stage? >> -- across the state? >> i have not gotten much reaction because it has only been a couple of hours. we will have to see if this translates into any kind of momentum. he hired some well-known and

veteran political strategists. good alan wilson got behind him. it was almost like he was trying to set himself up to be the establishment republican candidate. unfortunately for huntsman, there is another guy who has that title right now. if you look at huntsman's campaign, the type of voter they are going after is the fiscal conservative voter. those tend to be around the midlands. romney and huntsman appear to be the only two candidates really going after those voters, and

there are a couple of experts who believes huntsman could hurt romney. if he is able to get traction, that could cut into romney paucities. -- romney's base. >> you can call us or send an e- mail or send us a tweet. let me go back to this editorial saying we need to solve our nation's problems. someone who understands the negotiations are essential and that there are good ideas across the political spectrum, someone

who was a well-defined set of core values that is not so rigid. we sing mr. romney could demonstrate those characteristics. mr. huntsman already does. your reaction? >> i do not have much reaction. that is the opinion of the state's editorial board. i am not a member of the board. i just cover the political process in south carolina. i simply cover the political process in south carolina. that jon huntsman would like to adopt. he would like to see the primary voters adopt that as a path for him to gain some momentum. host: let me ask you about the other part of that narrative, which was put on the air by mike huckabee. he sat down with five candidates, including newt gingrich. the ground rules was no

criticism of other candidates. here's part of the exchange. clip: governor mitt romney ran saying that he created 100,000 jobs in the private sector. and clip: we have said that we would not allow negative comments. foot go in and try to answer the question. i believe that it is fair to ask for the records to be clear. my total record is clear, as i helped to found four small companies. i think that to ask questions about a particular company is not the same as attacking capitalism and i do not see how you and expect to have a presidential campaign in which -- in which an entire sector is avoided. i guarantee you, if we avoid it, our nominee in the fall is not going to find that obama avoids it at all. every single candidate has to be prepared to answer the

question before the nomination so that we know that whoever renominate is capable of surviving the fall campaign. host: that was yesterday on the "the fox news channel." that seemed to be much of the news that came out of the forum. what was your sense of the comments from the former house speaker, newt gingrich? guest: i was not surprised by them. the speaker has made an did a pretty big part of his campaign, attacking the mitt romney record at bain capital. newt gingrich has a super pac that has spent a substantial amount of money here. just last week, several of the station managers at the local television stations here told me that the newt gingrich campaign were shocked -- shopping around, trying to purchase half of an

hour of time that paints mitt romney as this greedy, job killing businessman. it makes perfect sense that newt gingrich would try to continue that. mitt romney is the front runner here. according to the polls, newt gingrich is a in second place. of course he is going to go after mitt romney to eat away at that support. host: this is from "the daily news." a focus on some of the past issues that have come up in south carolina presidential primaries. also, what does the current governor said about the charges of adultery from two years ago? why is south carolina so legendary in the town of its politics. guest: i think a lot of it has to do with our position on the calendar.

our voters vote early, but not first. we go after iowa and new hampshire. this campaign is already very well defined. a lot of shots had been taken. by the time the candidates and the campaigns arrived in south carolina, they have a lot to be angry about. especially in this cycle, south carolina tends to be the last stage for a host of candidates. rick perry, rick santorum, they both need to do well here. if they do not do well here, even if they do not win here, it could be the end of their campaign. there will be no tomorrow. they're trying to do everything that they can to continue their campaign. when you get a situation like that, it opens the door for this kind of dirty reputation politics. host: the headline this morning, from tampa, "victory would give the front runner a clear path to the nomination."

our first caller is from conway, south carolina. ed, good morning. caller: thank you for c-span. ought yes, america is in decline. south carolina is a perfect example of that. people do not want that scumbag, they want ron paul. we want to be free. we have a president who is trying to be a king and people who are playing politics with money. this system is sick. it has been in decline since they started murdering babies. there is a war going on in this country. host: reaction or comment?

guest: not much to say it to that. many people i've criticized governor haley. some people wonder for endorsement of mitt romney would be a hindrance more than a help. she has spent a lot of time on stage introducing him. any time a sitting governor gets involved in a primary, it will definitely make a difference. host: mitt romney, said that his record, which include buying and shutting down companies, it is the same as the obama record." can you elaborate on these stories? guest: first, the gina smith story. we have seen that narrative come up a lot. why would you attack governor romney on the free enterprise argument in a primary race? particularly because that is the argument that president obama is most likely to use and is, effectively, already using. why would you use that against

that romney? we have seen a lot of candidates backed off of that rhetoric. with my story, mitt romney made those comments in an interview with the state editorial board. it was just trying to say that if he is the nominee, this is how he would defend the attacks. investing money into private companies, making them better. i sometimes had to make tough decisions for that to happen. by giving lots of money to the auto industry, some people lost their jobs. i think that he would try to say that what he did was the same as what obama did in

detroit. host: this headline, from "the new york times," "criticism over time that bain capital." the criticism is that this could be old news. guest: a great point. especially because the democrats and the obama campaign committee are already pushing that narrative. by the time that we get to labor day, the american public could be tired of hearing about it. host: next, one of the staunchest supporters of mitt romney, a local talk show host that we chat with frequently. welcome to "the washington

journal." caller: i want to phrase your screen there. you have done a great job, and c-span has done a great job covering the election. i was the small businessman of the year in 1975. i am getting calls from all types of business people saying that they are for mitt romney. newt gingrich is from my home state. i know him personally. i like him, but he has made a huge mistake attacking the

running. 35% now support mitt romney. in the latest poll in south carolina, it looks like mitt romney is point to tie up this nomination pretty quickly. steve, you do an incredible job. host: joe, always nice to hear from you. thank you so much. adam, your response? guest: it is not impossible, especially given the nature of the race and how many candidates have made such huge gains in a short amount time. iowa is a great example of that with rick santorum, who surged tremendously in the days leading up to the primary. yesterday we had a group of 150 evangelical conservative leaders that met at a private ranch in houston tx and came out to say that they would endorse rick santorum, attempting to push evangelicals across the country to rally around rick santorum in a last-minute push. who knows what could happen in this coming week. with so many candidates in the

race providing for those same blocs of voters to present a hindrance, it would not be impossible. i talked about this a little bit before. the south carolina history always tries to go with the establishment candidate. host: let's go back to this story, from "the new york times." "to what extent will those attending the meeting be able to mobilize their followers behind rick santorum? it remains unclear. the leaders did not directly ask --

host: next, rebecca, ohio. welcome to the program. caller: i agree with the governor of georgia -- of georgia. thank god for c-span. host: joe will appreciate the elevation to state of governor from talk show host. caller: i thought he said the was the governor. [laughter] here is what gets me as an observer. i try to watch from the right, left, and center, and read from the right, left, and center. i know that washington journal showed a poll yesterday where

ron paul was in third place in south carolina. there is no way i would vote for him and his domestic issues, but on foreign policy he breaks down the wall through both parties, as well as independents, on his foreign- policy stances. he is not anti-war, he is anti- unnecessary wars. a huge number of military people back him up. unless i stepped out of the room, i do not believe that you have talked about ron paul either. yesterday, joe scarborough did not even bring up ron paul. chris matthews or and those guys, they insult and ignore him. i am fascinated by this pushing of ron paul off to the side. i have asked c-span to do a program on this article on foreign policy about mossad agents attempting to recruit people in pakistan to go into

iran. the major media is not talking about this, but you can read the article. on lot -- read the article online. guest: that is a good point. ron paul is ignored, to a certain extent, in south carolina. part of the reason for that is the he always seems to have his supporters here, and that is it. he always seems to be stuck in the 12% mark. this election cycle does seem to be doing very well. i like what the caller said about giving second place in new hampshire. but he has been kind of invisible in south carolina lately. the other candidates are holding three, five events per day. ron paul has had one event since he has been here, that i know

of. he is not on the ground that much here, although his campaign says that they will get a monumental endorsement from a rural beach -- merkel beach later today. i think that ron paul does have some problems. this is a very pro-military state. some of his views, including closing of a foreign military bases and pulling everyone backed, i have heard a lot of people in south carolina saying they have a problem with that. host: we are covering an event with rick santorum in south carolina later today. two polls and we want to ship -- share with you, this survey was conducted in concluded on friday if at reuters. another survey showing mitt romney ahead, with 29%, newt gingrich in second, and ron paul with 15%.

here are some of the advertisements on the air in south carolina. clip: what has massachusetts given us? a liberal governor. a liberal senator. a massachusetts moderate who runs away from ronald reagan. clip: i was an independent at the time of reagan-bush. i am not trying to return to reagan-bush. clip: romney chose the democrats. voting for a liberal democrat instead of president george h. w. bush. he raised taxes and offered government health care that funded taxpayer abortions. massachusetts moderate, mitt romney. he will say anything to win. clip: [speaking french] clip: he speaks french as well.

and he is still a massachusetts moderate. a massachusetts moderate cannot be barack obama. host: your reaction? guest: one of the interesting things raised in this advertisement is the issue of electability. that seems to be a common attack against mitt romney. that he is too moderate, too similar, even, to president obama. traveling around the state this week, with governor perry, he said -- why would we want to change out someone in the white house with someone who is only a little bit better, in his words. that issue of electability

seems to be gaining some traction amongst rival campaigns. one thing to keep in mind is that south carolinian is, like i said earlier, electability is a big thing for them as well. especially republicans. in every primary since 1980, the eventual winner of the nomination has had to win south carolina. something the republicans do not take lightly. that is very important to them. they look for that in a candidate. if you can try to get this narrative going, it could be one way to try to hurt him. host: john, welcome to the conversation. caller: how're you doing? host: fine, thank you. caller: this country is going down the hill. i got in on a job on the 15th and they fired me the next day.

i have been trying to get them to call me back. i cannot find a lawyer that will take this case. i do not understand, is that why republicans do not want unions? i do not understand what the republicans are trying to do to us. i have been struggling ever since. host: thank you for the call. how this is sentiment shore up with the story that euro about south carolina? guest go as far as labor unions, south carolina historically has not been friendly to labor unions. i do not think that any candidate could run on a platform that was pro-labor and

do well. as soon as rick santorum started surging after iowa, it appeared the that would be a tactic used against him. during his time in pennsylvania, which has unions, he had a couple of pro-union votes. it appeared that would be a way to attack him there. you have mitt romney, rick perry, everyone campaigning against the decision to attack the move of a boeing plant. host: responding to the advertisement that we just aired -- host: again, the overall

narrative is trying to draw a record between mitt romney, michael dukakis, and john kerry. guest: that would appear to be the case. it does seem to be unusual. but it is not something we have not seen before. i have seen advertisements attacking jon huntsman for speaking mandarin. as you know, he was the ambassador to china and is fluent in that language. i have seen advertisements criticizing him for speaking that language, implying that he would be too great of a friend to china. host: edgar, welcome to "washington journal." caller: i wanted to make just a few comments. i am a conservative republican they used to be a libertarian. to begin with, i believe in the newt gingrich assessment of mitt romney. i read his book, where he said the highest we could spend on

defense would be gross domestic pot -- product at 6%. the chinese have developed a stealth fighter, and they criticize ron paul. innocent american citizens die in car accidents, as far as legalizing narcotics. and the economy, we will need to reform the federal reserve, but not put an end to it. a national currency generates huge economies of scale. my vote would be for the more experienced and knowledgeable speaker of the house, newt gingrich. thank you very much. and your program is great.

host: let me use his comments to let the audience see with your seen across the state. this is the latest from the mitt romney campaign. >> i am a founding member of -- clip: i am a founding member of women affirming life. the pro-life movement is all about changing hearts and minds and expressing that it is unfortunate that mitt romney has been criticized by some people for coming to the pro- life division on the basis of information. that is what the pro-life movement is all about. he expended much of his political capital in suspending pro-life measures -- 85% of that legislature is democratically controlled. mitt romney vetoed legislation that would have prevented the destruction of embryonic

research and he vetoed the over- the-counter sale of the morning after pill. he supported abstinence education in school. governor romney was a great friend to the pro-life movement in massachusetts in a very difficult political environment. we were always welcomed by governor romney. he was a great pro-life governor and he will be a great pro-life president. host of that advertisement is available online, at the mitt romney web site. the mitt romney juggernaut been derailed, that being the cover story, going back to the issue of abortion we should point out that when he ran for senate, he ran as a pro-choice candidate. that obviously change when he became the governor of massachusetts won back it later. guest: right.

i think that that web- advertisement is fascinating. turning his flip-flop on abortion into an asset. you have this person who has been involved in the pro-life movement saying that the movement is about changing hearts and minds. we changed the mind of mitt romney. in this war that we are in, to try to win this argument, that is what we are trying to do. trying to turn that into an asset. the second thing that is interesting about that advertisement, it shows that governor romney is not just going to abandon the conservative evangelical vote. a lot of people have tried to say that all the guests to do is when the conservative fiscal

voters, and this shows that he will go after them. we will keep that conversion in mind. a lot of republicans look at that skeptically because it was done in the context of a political campaign. if it had been done outside of that realm, they would have been more willing to except that. especially with evangelical voters. host: melvin is on the phone. good morning to you. melvin, go ahead, please. we will go on to steven, indiana. caller: i do not know why anyone would vote for any republican.

if they get in, they are wanting to get rid of the minimum wage, social security, medicare. what are these people thinking? host: any response to that? obviously a wrist -- supporter of the president. guest only to say that most republicans would disagree. host: our guest is with the state newspaper in south carolina, one of the largest newspapers there. adam beam guest: you will see a lot of forms on the schedule. there are a couple more scheduled throughout the week. the candidates come out one at a time. they all come out together in the same place. what is interesting about that is that governor romney has not shied away from those events. he tends to show up in those nationally televised events and he goes around the state's with

this rally. it would be interesting to see if he does show up there and what he can do in that difficult setting. host: marc, good morning. caller: i heard you say some about ron paul that was a little bit off. i have a question.

ron paul, i am retired navy. ron paul has more support and gets more donations than twice as many of the other candidates combined. what he said was closing down bases overseas, blaming the people back home. this would stimulate the economy. when i was overseas, all of my money went to spain. all of my excess money was going to those economies. all of my money, when i was buying stuff, went to those economies. he wants to bring them back. he is not a chicken hawk, like

newt gingrich. he actually serve his country. the service people in your state should think about that, before they vote for newt gingrich. that having those bases here would stimulate support in the san diego area? guest: a good point. i know that dr. paul has a lot of support amongst people in service right now. i know the people were only trying to say what other republicans have told me, that the military minded, not necessarily those that serve in the service, they have people who are military minded and people actually in the service that might have an issue of closing down those bases. that is not the point i was trying to make. he certainly does have support amongst the military. host: one of the points from your newspaper is that the south carolina economy has had a

$13 billion in flux because of these military bases. guest: that is absolutely right. i know that anytime we have an issue with the military, business leaders and political leaders start touting that fact, that the economic indicator is certainly very important to south carolina. host: good morning, houston, texas. i notice you mentioned about how he had made his campaign about attacking mitt romney, and the irony is the entire gop campaign has made their campaign viable by attacking obama.

i am not here to debate that, but even sarah palin said it is not negative campaigning to question mitt romney about the number of jobs he destroyed, and when you consider the millions of people who have lost their jobs, the last thing people want is someone who represents the face of the person who fired them, so even if you were to counter that obama did the same thing with the detroit, one argument obama can make is that he has never profited offer of anybody cost jobs. -- anybody losing jobs. if we were going to vote a republican in, the only one i thought was viable was jon huntsman the entire republican party has a pretty much ignored

the guy, and as far as slipslop on abortion, the ability to change his mind would have more weight if it was not seen that he would be so easily swayed. >> certainly, mitt romney is going to have to deal with this capital issue. i know the other candidates have made an issue to attack him, but certainly, when it romney's companies made the decision, he did not profit personally i do not think obama profited from detroit. that would be an argument governor romney would have to find a way to refute. good >> our next guest joins us from st. louis.

i would ask the same question. mitt romney defines the debate. you have some one group saying it is big business. you have another group saying it is a big government. if you look get the tens of thousands of people being laid off, you think that helps define the question? >> i certainly think that is a question that mitt romney's detractors want to be the defining question. whether or not that is going to gain traction, who is to say we will probably see bank capital, of all lot, so there is time for that argument to gain traction. it could very well work.

>> i want to ask these questions both ways. anything can happen, but mitt romney will win south carolina and because? guest: if mitt romney winds south carolina, it will be because of a combination of issues, number one being electability, that republicans believe he can continue that tradition. a lot of it has to do with the split in conservative evangelical voters. evangelical voters make up 60% of primary voters, and when they can be fragmented among these different candidates, it is going to help a candidate like mitt romney. >> mitt romney will lose to south carolina because of the what? >> i think if he loses it will

because of an extraordinary effort of those against him to coalesce behind one candidate. there are a lot of barriers to that. we saw yesterday in houston the first attempt to try to build some momentum behind one candidate, but the question becomes who is that candidate, and how do you think that candidates? if you look up the polls, newt gingrich would be the most likely, because he is the closest to romney. others argue that rick santorum has a better shot at rallying that base. host: we want to thank adam beam. his work is available on-line. we appreciate your perspective.

>> tomorrow, a look at the week ahead in congress. the americorps director discusses martin luther king day, recognized as a day of service by the community service, and mark willes, -- mark wolfe talks about the low income energy assistance program. next, a discussion about the future of the guantanamo bay prison facility and then a forum on jobs. after that, q&a with a fact checking columnist from "the washington post." >> the deadline for the c-span studentcam video competition. we are asking which part of the

to youtution has meeting ce and why. for last minute details, go online to studentcam.org. >> now a discussion of the guantanamo bay prison facility as it marks its 10th anniversary. this is about half an hour. >> we want to welcome david cole. thank you for being with us. september 11 happened 10 years ago, and on january 11, to guantanamo bay was open. let's take a step back. why was the facility located in cuba, and what was the initial goal? >> i think there were two reasons for putting the

detainees at guantanamo bay. one is that it was a safe, relatively easy to secure a place, because it is far away from anything. need is an island. we have controlled it forever, so it was easy to secure. the second one is less noble, and that is the abortion ministration felt no law would apply if we put people there, that it could argue the detainees were not entitled to the protection of u.s. laws or the laws of war, etc. >> let's take a look across of guantanamo bay. who you will get a look get not only the cost of the costs to feed each prisoner. it is $19,000 in the state of florida per prisoner.

at guantanamo bay, the cost is of course of $800,000. >> it is remarkable. we are spending $800,000 per prisoner. the typical cost for a federal prison in the united states is $25,000. it is very costly in terms of dollars to keep it open. it is also extremely costly in terms of our image around the world. it has become one of the most well-known images of the united states and around the world. that is not a good thing for us in terms of our image, in terms of how high their recruitment tactics and the like. that is why not only did president obama want to close it. president bush thought it would

be a good idea to have a close. john mccain, who ran against president obama, everybody has said we would be better off if it were close. >> this is just another snack shop on the daily food comparison. if you are an inmate, it is $2.29 per prisoner. if you are a federal prisoner is $3.16. colorado, it is $3.45, and a detainee at guantanamo bay, $38.49. good >> it is an island. it costs a lot more to bring the

food there. because it is not in u.s. territory, and everything is going to cost a great deal more. >> open 10 months, what is its future >> that is a good question guest: the president obviously failed in meeting his goal. the extent to which people in congress will begin to pay attention to how much this is costing us not only in terms of the dollar's the talked-about, but in our image abroad. what is stopping us at present is congress. they have put restrictions on detainees from guantanamo, so the you cannot count -- transport them to the united

states, for any purpose. even to put them on trial. even if we determine that a person was innocent, we could not bring them to the united states to release them. they have put very with a promise that the person will pose no threat in the future and that the foreign government will share all of this intelligence with us. transfers from guantanamo has frozen -- have frozen. host: you can join the conversation by e-mail, journal@c-span.org, or by twitter. twitter.com/c-spanwj. this is from "the miami herald." 171 detainees.

guest: some of those costs, presumably we would have those even if they were being kept in the united states. the others would be sick man -- substantially diminished, as the obama administration would like. host: the headline, "guantanamo, the most expensive prison on earth." lee, new hampshire, the morning. caller: as they careen toward

bankruptcy. not only did president obama fail to close at -- caller: could you answer me a question? this money is a shame and a crime as our country careens towards bankruptcy. not only did president obama there to close it, he signed the authorization act which allows someone to decide that any one of us in america can be a threat or somehow all lined with forces that they say are against a national interest. any one of us could be scooped up by the military and detained without trial indefinitely. we may have to build another fortress on guantanamo bay to hold us all. guest: it is a troubling piece of legislation. it is a massive defense spending bill. it had a number of provisions that dealt with military detention and with guantanamo.

president obama was opposed to those provisions. he threatened to veto the bill because of those provisions, which were put in by members of congress over his administration's objection. at the end of the day, after threatening to veto the bill, the conference committee between the senate and house worked out a language that the obama administration felt that they could live with. some of that language is the language you referred to which codifies existing judicial decisions and administration decisions regarding the authority of the administration to detain persons who are fighting for al qaeda, the taliban, or associated for says. -- forces. that is a troubling provision. this was not at the

administration to decker urging. it was over their objections. host: can you define heebie -- define he habeus corpus? guest: it is an ancient ripped -- write that we got from england and is recognized in our constitution. it shall not be suspended except in times of rebellion or invasion when the public safety shall require it. it is the right of a person who is locked up to go to court and say, i am being illegally detained. it is about as basic a right as you can get because if you do not have a, what is the value of all of the other rights in the constitution? much of their litigation about guantanamo was whether or not detainee's had a right to come into court. the administration initially said no, absolutely not. no right to lawyers.

the supreme court said the statute is saying that there is a right of the detainees to come into court. the administration went to congress and congress repealed the statute that said they had a right to come into court. the supreme court said that the detainees have a constitutional right, so even where congress and the president had said that the door to the courthouse is close to these people, the supreme court said, no, they have a constitutional right. they have filed many petitions here in d.c. many of them have been found by the district courts to be wrongfully held because there is no adequate evidence that they were fighting for the enemy. host: who is left? guest: that is a good question. initially, -- i do not know how

many were brought there, initially. 7079 people are held at guantanamo now. that is a high number. over 600 of them have been released. 530 were released by president bush and another 70 or 80 have been released by president obama. what is left is 171 people. at what we know about them is that each one of them has had their cases reviewed by a joint committee of the military intelligence and that they have determined that 89 of those people -- more than half, do not need to be detained. it should be released. yet, they continue to be detained because of these congressional restrictions that were part of the ndaa that says, you cannot transfer them to the u.s. and you cannot release them to third countries absentees' extraordinary promises. host: we have nikole less than a pressure for 21 years. here law degree from yale law

school. he is a correspondent for a magazine and a staff for the center for constitutional rights. our call is banned. good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to point out that this is a terrible example of political pandering at its worst. anytime you have a president that makes a promise and has three years, essentially, to follow through with that and has failed -- this president did have two years of a democrat-controlled congress that he could pass a health-care bill and a cash bill. we are not able to close guantanamo. guest: excellent point.

it was the democratically controlled congress that initially blocked president obama's efforts to close guantanamo. it is a kind of -- is not partisan politics. it is not that the republicans are blocking president obama, it is republicans and democratic congressman are blocking president obama because they do not want to be responsible for having any guantanamo detainee, even when was the determined by the military to be no threat, to be in their jurisdiction. they do not want an even if they are in a maximum-security facility from which no one has ever escape. it is not in my backyard politics.

the caller makes a good the point. had president obama chosen to fight on this issue on closing guantanamo, who knows? we might have been able to persuade members of congress -- there might have been more education and public opinion on this issue and we might have closed guantanamo. at least initially, the decision was made by the chief of staff that health care and guantanamo at the same time was not possible. he chose health care. they did health care. that does not explain why they're still not fighting about closing guantanamo. in a very serious way. we have not heard president obama come out and make a speech about why guantanamo should be closed since may of 2009. host: how many prisoners have been proven guilty in guest: a court of: -- in a court of law? guest: 895.

-- it might be five. there have been several military commission that trials of guantanamo detainees. most of them have ended in the guilty pleas. the people pled guilty in exchange for the united states agreeing to release them. it is a kind of perverse situation in which there are better off pleading guilty because they get off the island and sent back to their country. david hicks was the first one to plead guilty. he was an australian man who pled guilty and we sent him back to australia. he spent six months in prison and he is a free man today. same thing happened with a young canadian man who was released after pleading guilty. there have been a few convictions, but they are very

few and far between. compare that to convictions in the united states in terrorist trials in ordinary federal criminal courts. we have had about 400 convictions since 9/11 on terrorist charges. many of them are trumped up charges under a very broad statute. it requires material support. nonetheless, hundreds of convictions for the federal criminal courts -- very few of the guantanamo detainees through military courts. host: some background on the guantanamo bay detentions' facility. it opened on january 11, 2002. it initially had several hundred inmates. it is part of a 45-square-mile base in cuba. a u.s. military base. it holds 1071 prisoners. 36 are awaiting trial in war trials. 46 have been held indefinitely. there is a briefing on monday.

>> i am aware of the obstacles to getting that done as quickly as the president wanted to get it done. [video clip] >> of the president's commitment has not changed at all. it is the right thing to do for our national security interest. that is an opinion shared by the president but senior members of the military and as well as his predecessor -- guest: that is right. anyone who has paid close attention to this issue, the military people, the intelligence people, the state department people, the law enforcement people, those who have to work with our allies abroad, those who have to watch al qaeda recruiting -- everybody agrees that guantanamo is a net loss for us where we

are losing by creating more terrorist than we are gaining by -- through security.

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>> they have not returned to the growth path of the rest of the country. 30 years later they still in many respects look like different places and before they looked like the rest of the country. observation, which is related to the first, is there is a long history of local economic development policy proposals, and i think that the shortcoming of that history is there is an element of a merry go round of that history. ideas come and go in and out of

fashion without any rhyme or reason and we never develop a playbook of the ones that work and the ones that didn't work as well. so, i think that evaluation of state and local economic policies has to be part of developing an effective set of them. then the third is i think -- and i don't think anyone has accused me of being a political scientist or having particular insights that deserve lots of notice about the political environment. but i would say it does seem like the federal government is not going to be a leader in growth policy for state and local economic issues in the coming years. so, i think that shines an especially important light on trying to identify policies that work well. for that, we have really a

fabulous group of people here. i can't quite believe it is a testament to the growth renovation projects that the people we have here and the way we will run this is i will ask each panelist a question in this broad topic area. i thought i would start with bob ruben, who despite being former secretary of the treasury, actually has a lot of expertise when it comes -- [laughter] >> we will see where this sentence goes. >> a lot of expertise when it comes to local economic development. he is the chairman of the local initiative support corporation, which gives away or makes investments of more than a billion dollars a year in local communities. so, bob, my question for you, besides recognizing your vast importance as a treasury

secretary -- i'm trying to recover ground. >> it is like being at the bottom of a deep hole. >> i wonder if you could talk about what role states and cities play in a national growth policy. as et me give you my view best i can. i have thought for a hroplong taoeutime and now with the dysfunctionality of the federal government it is more the important, states and cities have a lot of natural advantages and state and city activity ought to be part of any growth strategy. let me make a few more specific comments that follow up on that. one is states and cities have comparative advantages in various areas and it seems to me one great opportunity is to

build around those comparative advantages. some examples are silicon valley developed around stanford and berkeley. you could develop industrial parks around transportation hubs. you could -- you could obviously more readily.t you could develop industrial parks around labor and have labor intensive industries in a more obvious and advantageous position. i think there are a lot of opportunities. another good example are the many areas of this country that have great normal endowments but are still undeveloped as tourism sides. up state new york is one example. we have a federal system and that gives us a great advantage, which is that we can try different approaches to areas that are critical to growth and see which ones work best.

in a certain way that is going on in healthcare costs and other areas. that is something we can build a great deal more around. a third one, which i think has gotten far less focus is we have a negative needs but a plus needs of capital. there is a chance to attract capital from areas such as china and middle east and the greatest impediment of that flow into infrastructure is the concern about political reaction. you can structure that either by ownership of actual infrastructure assets or the infrastructure assets could be publicly run but ownership of the revenue flow. i think there is a tremendous opportunity for mayors an to develop strategies around infrastructure and work with these entities so the

mayors and governors bring their own expertise about navigating in our system to help them navigate through the political issues and regulatory issues. one ly, let phame mention technical subject. the fact that list distributes in various forms about a billion dollars a year in inner cities. i think there are four central points you can take. it is run as a real business with real business metrics. that could be applied to the public sector. number two, the projects are neighborhood developed and neighborhood led, not led from washington or from anyplace else. that is another example of what could be done in the public sector. third, a lot of it depends on low income housing tax credit. public funds are being used but they are combined with the

private sector expertise, or actually with private sector financial discipline. that is another lesson. finally, it provides technical assistance with respect to the projects and with respect to local neighborhood institutions. there is a lot to be learned from that in public sector activity. let me make one observation in that regard. michael told me once there was a study someplace that he seemed to think was a serious and responsible study or he wouldn't have mentioned -- maybe that assumption is not ready but anyway -- that showed that the return on infrastructure in the united states is about 2% per annum. that has to be because the infrastructure investment resources are allocated by a political process rather than the activity we have where capital is allocated based on private sector investment criteria. for those reasons i think that the state and local activity could be under any circumstances

and should be rather under any circumstances an important part of a natural growth strategy particularly when the federal government is relatively dysfunctional. >> i understand your vision for a lot of the knowledge applies locally. suppose that the federal government were operating on its maximum efficiency curve. what could the federal government do to facilitate some of those activities at the local level? >> i think alice rivlin once did some work on this and i think there is a lot of activity. could run them at the federal level or devolve them to the state and local level and provide federal funding. there is a lot to be said for the devolution where the local

area decides where a street should be or a park or somebody from washington. and you could create more accountability and efficient management and metrics and the application of metrics. so it is devolution with federal funding. >> next i want to turn to shirley jackson, who is the -- who has actually many roles. she is a unique perspective on state and local development as a president of a major research universi university, to her service on the president's council of advisors on science and technology and co-chair of one of governor cuomo's economic development councils in the city of new york. could you talk about your views on the elements that comprise an innovation ecosystem that we have talked about and how cities and states fit into that. >> i thought i would just talk

about what is the evolved view what key elements of an innovation ecosystem might be, then talk about three examples that are spaced 50 years apart, 25 years roughly each -- 26 to be exact, being a scientist. those elements are a strategic foc focus, idea generation, translational pathways to bring things into commercial realization and providing an economic base and infrastructure. that means human financial and infrastructu infrastructure -- human, physical, i should say -- and financial capital or infrastructure. let me talk about three things that have occurred over time. in 1959 -- i don't know if most people realize it goes back that

far -- business and academic leaders down in the ral raleigh-durham area came together with the idea of creating a locust for high-end research activity and business and started with creating a park, research triangle park. the idea would be to be proximate to the three great research universities in the area -- duke university, north carolina state university and u.n.c. at chapel hill. it has since evolved to include a larger number of universities including an historical minority instituti institution. they started out with about 200,000 square feet of occupied space. today it is over 22 million and home to 170 companies, many major enterprises or parts of enterprises. so, there was an example that i

think plays into something that bob rubin mentioned that you have certain assets, you have a certain geographical opportun y opportunity, and then one sets out to build on those. and we all know about research triangle today. fast-forward about 26 years from there and in 1985 governor tom kean got the new jersey legislature to create the new jersey commission on science and technology. that was when other states were looking at things like this. and the idea was to have state capital leverage university industry partnerships in areas that were deemed to be important to new jersey's economy. the structure of the commission deliberately was structured to have government officials -- in fact, the state senate majority

leader and speaker assembly on the commission -- president at any given time of two of the research entities, one public and one private and a certain number of private citizens who were gubernatorial appointees. and i was one of those. it was not a paid position, i assure you. so, the commission focused on creating centers, advanced research centers, building actual infrastructure, then it had a budget to do a competitive grants program in certain research areas that the commission discussed and deemed to be important, things like advanced biotechnology and medici medicine, informatics at that time and computation and so on. it is interesting how many of them are still things people talk about today. the one thing that was missing

from the discussion at the time was nanotechnology. i would say that effort strengthen mightily rutgers university as a research university. it certainly has played into the pharmaceutical industry in new jersey in helping to retain -- not alone but it has played into that and has improved the overall visibility of the state. now we come 26 more years down the line to 2011 and governor andrew cuomo is elected in new state. and he creates -- he has the state divided into 10 regions. eight to 10 le has counties in it. he creates regional economic development councils. he sets out a competitive process to have each region

develop its own strategic plan and to have those plans then competitively evaluated against each other, but to lay out a framework with at least a five-year outlook. and in the end there were four plans that had certain characteristics. but all of the regions developed the plans and therefore have a strategic outlook for the next five years that cause people to come together in collaborative ways. some were further down the pike in terms of readiness to launch activities, so it is still a work in progress. now, what is the difference and how does it relate to what i said? on the idea generation side one could make the argument that when you have the academic and business leaders come together or you create people who are legislators and heads of

universities and business leaders in a new jersey context, it is more of a top-down process and identifying key areas for investment and so on. what is interesting in the new york situation is that it is a bottom-up because each region was asked it decide what was important for that region. now, when that happens, one runs the risk of confusing development with economic development because people always want to build and have shovel-ready projects. but i think these are interesting experiments and i would say there's been persistent effect to varying degrees for each one. the one in new york is new. now new york is coming through this process after a very top -- down process understood a previous governor and made a huge investments in nanotechnology which looks like it is bearing fruit in terms of a major facility but it cost

$1.2 billion to get there. if you go back through, all of them have these elements, some more directly investing in human capital, in research. most of them investing in some kind of infrastructure. and the financing mechanisms were different. in new jersey it is the bond issue. in new york it is appropriated mon money. frankly, i don't remember in north carolina. so, i think these are relevant we need to think a little bit about because it is a question of what is strategically important, how is competitive advanta advantage, persistent competitive advantage developed and/or confident. that played into work we have been doing. if i have a chance it talk about that i would like to do it. >> you have identified all kinds of ways in which states

and localities can be dynamic. i tried a little bit of it. but when almost every state is facing extremely difficult constrictions where will the financing come from? >> that is a good question. let me talk about new york because we are right in the middle of that. you have a governor into came in with a mandate, managed to work across the partisan divide and get people to pass a true balanced budget that requires some cutting and he worked through that and was willing to do that. then essentially it amounts to using funds that the governor always in new york has available to him and essentially redirecting those funds. but coupled with that creating a more consolidated funding application process for the usual things that the government would fund maybe at whatever level the budget ahusba-- allow.

but it is like a one-stop shopping so there is an efficiency and clarity factor put in. i'm not going to argue that we are where we want to be and there are issues that all the councils want us to deal with. but it is being willing to make the hard decisions to redirect. because the new jersey situation came long when the bond issues could be passed. here it manassas taphaepbmanass what you have. that is always hard to do. but that is the other reason in some of the regional plans are collaborative mechanisms of having the banking community come together to create loan funds. that was actually part of one of the plans, a revolving loan fund, as well as having local examples of funding. >> so, this is exactly why i was

so excited to be able to have this panel because this question has moved to fronting and who do i have to my left but the president of the rockefeller foundation and i'm dying to ask you because i know you have been doing incredibly innovative work for financing on state and local governments and i wonders if you can talk about that. >> we were driven to this because we recognized that there really are not enough dollars in philanthropy or development to solve the large global problems that we face and that when countries all over the world are facing these situations we need to look at other mechanisms, create a real ecosystem around pilot opportunities for exploring innovative financing. so, i would like to talk about three briefly and they really touch on something bob said and shirley said.

we are now funding a collaborati collaboration among the states washington, oregon and california. they are putting together the infrastructure that will ultimately create an infrastructure bank for the western coastal states. it is the governors and state treasu treasurers together and i think they have recognized correctly that innovation is about process as well as product, and before they are able to create the product they have to align and platform the kinds of issues, which are time frames, pay back, state budgets don't have 10-year budgets so how can they give a p horizon. they are building the infrastructure including mult budgeting in their states that would allow the attraction of private capital aligning the policies that would really do that. and they are ready to roll in about 18 months i would say from

now to really begin to attract large private investment with regard to infrastructure, which they think is going to be in the next 15 years about $1 trillion of needs, which they don't think they can get through conventional bond structures. so, that is a new kinds of debt and equity structure. >> these three states are not going to wait for the discussion of the 47th version of the federal bank? >> no. i think this is a better mace to start, i'm optimistic. bruce katz and i have been writing on the pragmatic caucus which is what our two speakers are talking about, wigs the fact that in a lot of areas in the united states the metro regions are not waiting for the federal government. >> but there were 47 very good plans about natural infrastructure banks floating

around the city right now. >> right. we hope they will come to fruition. we funded the construction of two of those plans. but we're not waiting either any more. the innovation is occurring in the states and metro regions. for whatever reason and we could spends 14 hours speculating, we won't get that creativity currently out of the federal government so we ought to go back to a federalist system which is what we're really talking about, and look for ways to promote that kinds of energy and creativity at the regional, state and local level. other incredibly innovative examples. we have had the privilege of supporting the pilot in the u.k. on social impact bonds. these are bonds that really try to take a proven social int intervention.

first it is reducing rate of juvenile reincarceration. and the u.k. government was able to see the cost to them for the repeated reincarceration. they developed with the investment bankers a model where they would float a bond, sell it to the private market, and the payout would be, if they could reduce the rate of the reoffending, if it is social could reduce it below what the government had then. it is in the marketplace now. it was sold out very quickly. and it has been brought -- the idea has been brought to the united states and massachusetts has solicited r.f.p.'s and gotten 34 really interesting ideas. minnesota has gotten the legislature to float a $20

million band for trying this proce process. so, how you marry private sector capital with proven social innovation where you demand metrics because the payout requires those metrics in advance and metrics driven assessment for the payout, you are really getting a triple win. because one of the questions is the interventions being measured and monitored. the next different example, one that rockefeller led about five years ago in correct a new york city housing acquisition fund and lisc was one of the beneficiaries. the idea was that commercial pweufrpgs didn't want to -- banks didn't want to put money up for the acquisition of land. they felt that the risk was too great particularly for low income housing. so, a group of foundations came together and put in $50 million

risk e first electrictpeurfirsf capital. that allowed the commercial banks to be willing to take the second tier of risk and they put in $250 million. put in the k city third tier of risk. that has built tens of thousands of units of housing without waiting for money from h.u.d. so, again and again what we are seek is that -- seeing is that the marriage of wall street capital, equity and debt structures to government policy is roducing social out kopcomes really going on and it is very powerful and it is very compelling. >> thank you. i think -- shirley. >> another marriage that has worked and created a more

sustainable advantage has been the marriage of universities with government and the private sector. you are hearing your incarnation as president of rockefeller but you were president of one of our great universities, the university of pennsylvania. and at that point you did some amazing things with the university of pennsylvania in philadelphia. can you talk about that and that was then and this is now, but are there any lessons learned out of that? >> you gave such great examples of the economic development capacity of bringing together universities and the private sector and government. penn sat in the middle of a very disadvantaged neighborhood, west philadelphia, and we felt that we had a strong commitment to helping to rebuild that neighborhood not only economically but socially, its housing stock, schooling stock.

so, we initiated a multi-pronged intervention over a number of years. initially investing university endowment funds to then get believers so that we put our money where our mouth was, but also to be able to ultimately attract private capital as well. so, we interconvened in safety and -- intervened in building stock and neighborhood schools, not for the penn faculty unless they lived there. and building economic development by creating a mechanism that said buy west philadelphia first. so, penn owned five hospitals. we sent our laundry out all over philadelphia and new jersey. we created a minority owned laundry in west philadelphia that now has all of the

hospitals in philadelphia as their client. it supports 2,000 jobs and really has started to move the economy forward. so, i think that the moral commitment, intellectual capacity and economic resources that universities have makes them a critical partner as we talk about regional development. in my case i wrote about this as the role of urban universities and you have been doing magnificent things as well. most of our large cities and small towns eds and meds are among the largest praoefrt employers. so we often don't look to universities to be one of the partners economically in terms of their resources, not only their academic capacity burks as we think about what states and regions and cities will need going into the 21st century,

they will not be able to accomplish this without universities really putting some skin in the game. >> and universities are really attractors of talent. >> absolutely. >> we are also extremely fortunate to have the leading part of the fantastic metropolitan program team and wrote a fascinating paper that is part of today a's papers released. i think that alan's colleagues have their finger on the pulse on what is going on around the country at the local level. there is a lot of diversity of experiences. could you talk about what is allowing some places to flourish and in a relatively tough macroeconomic environment and what is holding others back. >> in washington we live in all sorts of different bubbles of

our own creation, but one those of us who live here is a bit of a labor market bubble. a lot of buildings being built, restaurants are pretty full. i don't know that many unemployed people. maybe they are all working on infrastructure binge proposals -- bank proposals. the unemployment rate stays at 5.4% more than three percentage points below the national average. i was visiting some friends in modesto and you pass ghostown subdivisions. the downtown has a lot of vacant storefronts. they know people who are unemployed and underemployed who have college degrees. the only saving grace is they commute back to san francisco and such areas. but the unemployment rate at

modesto is north of 15%. it is a very big country with vastly different conditions on the ground and i think that we talk about the macro measures that are important for the recovery. but i'm not convinced they are sufficient and the difference is the nature of the crisis. so we look at what is going on in the 100 largest metro areas. they are two-thirds of the population and three-quarters of the g.d.p. and i see three factors that are present in combinati combination. one is just about industries and what different metropolitan areas do. what they did before the crisis, what they are doing coming out of the crisis. there were a lot of manufacturing areas particularly the auto manufacturing belt that were clobbered in the first stage of the recession.

detroit, cleveland, greenville, south carolina. those places are recovering very quickly right now. so they made up a lot of ground they lost during the recession. unemployment in detroit has dropped by five percentage points the last two years versus about a 1% decrease nationally. you see strength in some of the export oriented metropolitan areas that are focused on meeting domestic and foreign demand. at the same time you have these metropolitan areas that were invested in housing, real estate, consumption economies before the housing crisis. las vegas, phoenix, places in florida, struggling to recover right now. struggling to rebalance their economy toward more productive sources of employment, meeting demand elsewhere outside just the local economy and bringing wealth become in. you are seeing government focused metropolitan areas that were buffered from the worst effects of the initial crisis

struggling now in the face of public sector employment cuts and ripple effects. a second issue is the nature of the housing market and housing prices. gary talked about that this morning. between a las vegas where prices are about 65% off their peak values prereception to pittsburgh where they are only 8% off. of course the metro areas that have the large er declines are experiencing stagnant unemployment rates both because of the direct effect of unemployment but indirect effect of how wealthy households feel. then the third thing we talk about the macro level but which is relevant is workforce skills. we know less educated employs have 13.2% unemployments without a high school diploma versus 4.4% with a college degree.

at the national level the evidence i have seen i'm not convinced workforce skims are a barrier nationally to labor market recovery but at the local level we see it affecting the longer road to recovery in some metropolitan areas. both places like philadelphia, little rock, san antonio, where there seems to be a bit of a gap between what the occupational structure of those areas suggest is needed from an educational perspective and what their workforce looks like from an educational perspective. then places like augusta, g., los angeles, memphis, phoenix, that have a double whammy of industry structural problem and significant education problem. in the main that is mostly a longer run issue but may be having more short-term effects. as the panelists have noted there are leaders who are responding to this crisis not just generally but specifically with respect to the unique source of issues they face and

our program is working directly with several governors, metropolitan leaders across the country on initiatives supported by the rockefeller foundation under the auspices of our brookings rockefeller project and judith might talk more about some examples out of that. some of those are highlighted in the paper but i think the places are largely acting in the absence of federal listen and the up side is they are tailoring their intervention that are about the unique source of challenges they faice. >> michael asked me what the federal government could do to contribute to the vital iity ani said devolution. what is it that the federal government many pediatrics and what changes could be -- impedes and you could focus on people to

come together to free up local energy. that is a question for anybody. >> i will start. various areas we are working with as part of projects on export initiatives to increase their reach in fortune markets for consumption -- foreign markets they are having to navigate a very complicated level of federal programs, policies and agencies that it is not transparent, things are done at too small a scale because they are distributed and defused in a way that do not allow them to act on a very coherent strategy but the government still retains a large responsibility for foreign trade so there is only so much these cities and metropolitan areas can do on their own. i think some of the stuff the secretary talked about in terms of bringing greater coherence to

the way the commerce department works, doing that in collaboration with cities and states and acting in more of a bottom up way that promotes their ability to interact with fortune markets. i think that would be a huge thing. >> the problems don't land on the ground and cities and regions in convenient packages that have the labels of the federal agencies. so, how that kind of collaboration across the federal government can occur with funds that they already have. so we have a sustainable initiatives between e.t.a., transportation and h.u.d. that is one of the first of getting the agencies to really work together to recognize that each of the three of them has both from a regulatory and funding perspective a real ability to transform the sustainability of urban america. they can't do it in a silo way

but those are few and far between. >> the government historically has always played a role in three key areas. in education, in research, and in infrastructure. many times when we talk about infrastructure we think about roads and bridges but let's not forget the internet, development of the microprocessor the g.p.s. system. these came out of mission driven needs of the federal government, but they are being opened to the commercial sector actually has led to the creation of many great industries. an area where there are clouds on the horizon really does have to do with support of our great research universities, particularly the private research universities. there they are being hurt by state level policies in terms of support as well as a definite

slowdown in federal funding for basic research. so, we just had this discussion about the important role that universities particularly major ones can play. they obviously are in the human capital business but they also are in the research business and they are an attractor and retainer of talent. so, immigration policy is another area. that affects businesses and you hear a number of technology oriented companies speak to that. it has an effect on the research universities as well, both at the -- particularly at the level of faculty and researchers but there are even some wrinkles in the world of students and student visas. so, these are two key areas, the research and the support and immigrati

mmigration, but then there are broader issues having to do with coherence of governmental approaches relative to page -- major infrastructure particularly relating to energy, broadband, use of spectrum, et cetera. these do rest with the federal government. earlier in a more private conversation i talked about the fact of having a discussion degree to which the government should be the first follower versus the first heard. there are a number of innovative initiatives and pilots at the state and regional level that the government having its program that the people compete for it might be time for the government to focus resources to undergird some of the initiatives. >> i want to pick up on a thread you put out there. i think there is nothing that says that the united states has to have the highest living

standards in the world and in fact a lot of that reflects -- a lot of our history reflects conscious choices and one cannot help when you think of the inability to pass a highway bill more than six months at a time or to meet infrastructure needs more broadly in many ways we are choosing a future and state and local governments are doing a lot to respond to try to fill the gap. but i think that the roles of government cannot be missed in all of this. now, i think we have about seven minutes left and we have such an excellent panel that i think that it would be a shame not to give everyone here a chance to talk to them and ask questions. so i thought we would open the floor for questions.

>> i have a question about small and medium spwroeuss. today i learned that 95% of the global market is outside the u.s. and, of course, multi-analyst are doing good for exports and f.d.i. but how do you connect the growing market with the rest of the world with locals? i was encouraged by the federal government but s.d.i. is not necessarily encouraged because the image that we're losing jobs outside. but unless you get closer to end compromise you don't really expect to grow exports. >> one way -- and it goes to one of the innovative experiments we are seeing on the ground is to link the s.m.e.'s more

effectively into an ecosystem with the larger global companies. for example, there is an initiative in puget sound putting a number of universities, very large companies and many, many s.m.e.'s that are a little further down in the value chain together to collaborative actively -- collaboratively to work on energy efficiency i.t. their goal is to be the energy efficiency i.t. producer of the world and then export, export, export. the s.m. e.'s go along in that collaborative process. otherwise you are building them within a national or local environment and the capacity to really grow may not be there sufficiently. >> let me make one other comment. i had the pleasure of co-heading

the advanced manufacturing study that was done and one of the key points that we talked about was the importance of the government, where possible, providing a safe harbor for public-private partnerships when you do bring together the larger and smaller enterprises, particularly in areas where there can be shared infrastructure. because that can be of great benefit to s.m.e.'s. we talked a lot here about manufacturing, but what we have not talked a lot about is advanced manufacturing. when we talk about it, we tend to talk about it from the point of view of cutting out jobs but we don't talk about how more advanced techniques including modeling and simulation can help existing enterprises and existing s.m.e.'s to improve the productivity and quality of what they produce, which helps their

competitiveness vis-a-vis selling into global markets as well as the definition of advanced manufacturing that has to do with using the newer technologies and bringing new approaches and technologies to market. to me those are things -- and when you talk on the one hand about preexisting companies and how they can grow and improve what they do and on the other you are talking about start-up, entrepreneurial enterprises and having them. but they do come together at the level of public-private partnerships of a certain kind and they come together when it comes to having shared infrastructu infrastructure. it can be university, it can be government sponsor ed or some other mechanism. >> another place we have not mentioned the green economy today at least in this session, and there is a whole s.m.e. infrastructure around the green economy, jobs that can't be

outsourced because they are energy retrofit jobs, waste management, water supply chains. all of those represent growth opportunities in the united states and again we are seeing a lot of regional and local government understanding with a fair degree of creativity what the opportunity is here and it is a real s.m.e. play at the local level. >> and the capital region of new york state has taken advantage of that. >> i don't know the answer to this question but the german economy has enormous numbers of s.m.e.'s and they have niche products that they export and they come into an effective nexus with customers. don't know how the german economy has done that but it is worth looking at that as a model. >> we have time for a couple more questions. >> thank you. i want to circle back to some

things we were speaking about this morning and tie it into your panel this afternoon. on workforce preparedness and the opportunities at states and localities in terms of education preparation and job training preparation. in virginia, although we have a tremendous disparity between the booming economy in northern virginia and timber, textile and economy in south side that is pretty decimated but the shared commonality k-12 education is not really integrated with community college curriculum and preparation so our community college presidents complain when their students come into the community college some which we have a strong one, 50% of the freshman class, the first-year, needs remedial classes and they would like -- we have had a businebig

-- we would welcome a chance to have ideas and thoughts about how we present these silos in education systems within states, what the federal government could do, what academia and businesses could do to help and we talk about stem curriculum where overseas they talk more about steam because the arts are added into it and it seems as if you are going to use innovation and creativity and creative working class you can't create distinct sort of silos of humanities and science if you are going to compete in a global economy. what are the kinds of things that you see that the government could do to create a partnership with local and state governments to improve those things and make us all competitive in the future? >> let me speak as an educator on the panel. then i will defer to judy as well. i think first of all any

institution that says that it has people arrive at the door who are un preparprepared has t an articulation of what it is they expect in terms of knowledge, skills and abilities. but then you have to have people who are listening in terms of the k-12 system, in terms of people having certain baseline skills and how you bridge to the next level. secondly, i worry sometimes when we talk about framing programs in particular that we say that there are people who don't have the skills for the jobs that are needed today and that is certainly true that there is dislocation, but some of it is geographic dislocation that the people with the skills are not where the jobs are. so the questions are whether there are incentives and programs to get people to mick geographic moves. the third is how compelling is the curriculum when one does

ore vocationally orient ed vocation. what are the most -- how do you simultaneously train someone in a certain kind of skill but give them some undergirding knowledge that allows them to have self-supportability. so if we are talking about a migration, which i think there has to be in our manufacturing sector and it is already happening, you will have people working with more sophisticated systems with computer driven, use of sensorsance robotics and sensors and rob robotics. that doesn't get totally at your question of what the skills people arrive at the door with. but we know we need to think of different ways. so i come down on the side of two things, back to the fundamentals because if you can't read, write, add, subtract, multiply, think on

your feet, do a few fractions under a few stats particulars and do some tkpwragraphing i doe how you can do anything. >> some people are going to walk out. >> but we have a number of -- >> my wife is an english major. >> i'm sure she can add, subtract, multiply, divide, read and write. >> i'm not sure about the log rhythm thing. >> but you talked about the a and stem and we built an arts center because we believe in the cultural rootedness and arts. in addition, you can't just talk about the arts to keep the arts in the curriculum. he wissue is what is the value add and how does it play into the more integrated front and use those things in new ways, given new technology to reach our students in a different way

to have different approaches. >> i would just add and i won't give examples, i am serving on a white house commission on looking for community based solutions that the tpeufirst las chairing and we have been searching in communities for really good interventions that are working that address this set of issues. and the driver for us, think about the compression we feel listen to some of alan's data. we were looking at data at our first meeting that showed the exponenti exponentially quickest growing country in terms of middle school dropout rates is the united states in the last seven years. so, we are on a trajectory that we can't some. we have to think about community

based solutions. we will be issuing a report with recommendations but we are going to populate a website with all the great examples that we have found from around the country and i really comment that to u you. it is very good and a heartening demonstration of the kinds of intervention that work but we have a serious national problem. >> i think we are out of time. one thing i want to say about the last two comments, if i were in charge of all state and local policy, which no one has appointed me or suggested that i be in that role -- >> go ahead. >> yeah. but i think the most important thing for living standards for americans are skills. to a first order people get paid what their skills are and to the last two comments i think the k to 12 system has not been -- test scores are flat 30 yours, college completion rates are

flat. and wages for many americans have been declining or flat for a long time. for state and local governments the most important thing is to get the education system working as well as they can. >> i think that was just a terrific panel. possible we left the best for last today. thank you very much for doing that. as i said when we kicked off today, i know there is competition out here, come on, guys. you guys did a great job, too. that is what i was about to say, martin, so thank you. i promised earlier that among other things you would see brookings intellectual property with the real world on parade and i think that is what we have seen. i couldn't be more proud and pleased about what we have seen and what it expresses.

i have one last thought to leave you with. we heard a bunch of defend perspectives from a bunch of different industries and government and union and scholars and other actors in the community. one theme that came back to us is the absolute importance of good governance in facilitating progress. we heard it from different angles, whether new industries racing forward, not having time to catch up, creating businesses to work around dysfunctional government and can you actually have a continuing economic prosperity in the absence of functional again instance. what we will do is digest what we have heard and come through with actionable paths forward. but one thing brookings can do

is how we can create some kind of road map for functional governance without which very little gets done or it is done despite what happens here. thank you for coming and enjoy your weekend. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> next glen kessler. live at 7:00 a.m. your calls and comments on "washington post." >> rick perry, rick santorum and their wives take part in separate cafe forums in myrtle beach, south carolina. live coverage of the meetings begins at 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span today. >> a quick reminder of the deadline for c-span video cam

competition. we are asking which has meaning to you and why.